Does Starling produce a publicly available annual report ?
Boden says that Starling is the more serious option of the two. âWeâve only been a bank,â she says, in reference to Monzoâs beginnings as a provider of pre-paid debit cards.
Half a million customers on a prepaid Beta tells me that a great deal of people arenât really interested in whether something is technically a bank or not.
Being a bank isnât end-game for us, being your financial control centre is. Itâs just that that you need to be a bank to do it. So we did as much as we could without technically being a bank, and then we became a bank in order to continue to do so.
You donât disrupt an industry by replicating the status quo, but in a new way. You do it by making the entire old system obsolete.
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Any companyâs Annual Report was I thought obtainable from Companies House by download off their website along with notices of annual general meetings and other such notices
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YeahâŠI donât want you or starling or anyone to be my financial control centre thanks. I am my financial control centre. That phrasing scares me in a Facebook sort of wayâŠ
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From what I understand itâs a tool to give you (who is still very much in control!) visibility of your finances and provide features that enable painless control of savings, utilities, credit etc. Pretty sure the app isnât going to start deciding to invest your money on its own without your knowledge 
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I understand that.
But my interest is me.
Monzoâs et al is them, then me.
Example.
Monzoâs offered me ÂŁ25 to switch to Bulb
MeâŠused a link on forum and gave myself and another ÂŁ50.
Starling offered me travel insurance higher than a comparison site.
MeâŠI used comparison site, saved money and got 241 movies for a year.
Itâs fine that plenty of people in the forum are happy to lose money or take slightly worse deal because they are invested (financially or emotionally) but Reggular Joe wants the best deal, the Frist Direct Overdraft, the nationwide interest rate etc. and ultimately as I get older and earn more, the best deal will always win out.
ButâŠmaybe Iâm different!
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Think the overall idea is you go and choose the product you want, marketplace or by searching and then they get added linked automagically into your monzo account.
You can control them just from Monzo even though they are with other providers
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I donât know enough about open banking butâŠwould this mean a non bank someone like compare the market or I suppose Emma could do the same and I could link my bank via them, and get the best deal everytime?
Honestly not sure. Iâm guessing itâs possible and canât see why not but someone who actually is better qualified needs to answer that.
Wouldnât trust any of those comparison sites as they get paid to recommend
Possibly. But as far as Iâm aware, CompareTheMarket, for example, doesnât share the referral fee with you for Bulb for example. Instead what I do is I check Whichâs ratings - and check the providers with an acceptable customer service track record - and go to the providerâs site to check for prices. Then sign up through the marketplace if they have that provider - otherwise, if not, Iâll go direct with the provider.
Also, Monzoâs end-game isnât referral links - I think they intend to integrate the app with a number of providers, so they can actually predict bills, etc.
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I like Which!
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It is actually Which? (Which?Âź)
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Which is which? 
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For me both banks are very very similar, with the same sorts of issues currently⊠once things like 3D secure is sorted and merchants updating BIN ranges and other stuff like that then we will have two banks that will almost certainly be virtually identical from a consumer perspective⊠what will then set them apart is detail like app functionality and marketplace integrationâŠ
They both are
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Anyone from Monzo advise? Iâm quite interested and Iâm sure the number is easy to get a hold ofâŠ
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Question for the Starling Gurus amongst us (@anon44204028 @Demmedelusive). What does it mean to be a Guru? Do you have special insight / have a private forum /meet Starling folk? And how did you graduate to guru status?
(I would ask on the Starling forums being a customer and all, but Iâm not keen on the sign up options at the moment!)
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I too hate the Starling forum sign up options!
Regardless of if we know any Starling staff or directors and go out to the pub with them that is not the sort of criteria they use to select Starling Gurus.
They look for levels of activity, depth and quality of contribution, courteous and constructive replies to users posts, that sort of thing. If you continue this for some time then they may approach you when there is an opening for a Starling Guru. Although they recently ramped up staff reading of and interaction with the community, so I do not anticipate any new Starling Guru appointments at the momentâŠthough I could be proved wrong!
The Starling Gurus do not have any special insight, but we do have closed user threads where we can discuss issues in and seek further info or answers from Starling staff.
Maybe @Demmedelusive can correct me on some of this? He is not only a Starling Guru but also awarded the moniker âWizard Grahamâ for his contribution to their community!
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Thatâs pretty much the ticket, @Peter_G. We were asked to take a watching brief over the forum (itâs much newer than Monzoâs of course). In practice, we donât have an authority that appears to exist for the Monzo leaders and we donât have any greater knowledge than the community. Not too sure, though, what weight they carry.
On occasion, one or more of us have dropped a note to the forum manager if itâs getting a bit tasty (Saturday night syndrome 
).
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Thanks both! I was just idly curious really, but that insight is really interesting. 